Galatia, KS is my (not so small at 13') shunting plank representing a rural Kansas shortline in the near present

Galatia itself is actually a real location in Kansas. From 1919 it was also the terminus of the Little River Sub-division of the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe (ATSF) railway and remained as a quiet backwater of the railroad’s empire until it was spun off in a group of local lines on 31/12/1992 to short line operator Central Kansas Railway. Unfortunately the new owner almost immediately filed for abandonment on the grounds of a lack of traffic and est. $4m to maintain the track bed and by the time the Central Kansas was bought out by the Kansas & Oklahoma in 2001 the line to Galatia had been lifted

In my modelling reality the line has been sold on again to the Meridian, Pacific & Eastern, who have managed to generate sufficient traffic to keep operating. Income comes from outbound seasonal grain movements and inbound agricultural supplies supplemented with ad-hoc traffic of cement, plastic pellets & food distribution. The railroad interchanges traffic with both the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), via the regional short line Kansas & Oklahoma and Union Pacific. Where margins are tight motive power is the “pre-owned” variety in the shape of a pair of GE 70 ton switchers and a CF7 supplemented with the occasional leased locos to cover. The town's elevator is switched by either an elderly GE 45 tonner or it's intended replacement Trackmobile

I am really starting to like this new forum, nice layout indeed, I love the small GE's.
It is great to see the enthusiasm of people now posting on here, hopefully more will follow.

On my part, i will try to 'present' my home layout this coming week on here. (it's by far not anywhere near finished, but i hope to make some inroads into that this week, as I'm home on leave during this half term).

Thanks. The on line customer spurs were designed using the idea is mutiple 'spots' on a single spur a la Lance Mindheim. Thus the agri-supplies dealer has 3 distinct spots - one over a drop pit for unloading covered hoppers, one next to the loading dock door for palleted goods from box cars and one next to the storage tanks for liquid molasses animal feed from tank cars.

Cheers

Dan

Last edited by warbonnetuk on Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

It's really interesting that one of the common themes many of us seem to have is the developing interest in layouts for operation and portability, as well as still being able to strive for decent, believable scenery. Add to that the agreed Modular Standards that allow inter-operability, DDC and sound, plus smooth running. It's one of the developing threads of the hobby in the UK.